


Warmer Corners

by vorkosigan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Christmas, Endgame Fix-It, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not a kid fic, Team as Family, holiday fic, near-death experiences make people act silly, no one dies, some mentions of divorce (tony-pepper)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorkosigan/pseuds/vorkosigan
Summary: It all started when Morgan decided she wanted to meet Captain America. Or perhas it started when Steve fell into a frozen lake and Tony had to fish him out. Or maybe when he decided it was a good idea to crawl under the blankets and try to warm Steve up using his body heat. But, most probably, it actually started a long time ago.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 42
Kudos: 441
Collections: You Gave Me A Stocking 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/gifts).



> Happy new year, dear <3 <3 <3

There was nothing Tony wouldn't have done for Morgan, especially because it was Christmas and also her birthday. This was doubly so this year, while she was still struggling to understand the practical meaning of divorce. She was supposed to stay with him on Christmas Eve, and then, come Christmas Day cum her birthday (she dubbed it 'birthmas'), they would join Pepper in the city, and all three of them would go and eat horrible food that Morgan picked and then they would visit a theme park. Morgan still had to decide which one it would be; she kept changing her preferences daily. Hell, Tony would have _bought_ her a theme park if she wanted. (Okay, so Pepper would probably go nuts.)

Still, what Morgan apparently wanted was for 'Santa Cap' to come bring her presents. _The what now_ , _sweetie? Santa's cap?_ Tony had asked, even as it slowly dawned on him that she'd meant something completely different. And yes, he'd been seeing those dolls around. He remembered now.

"But I want the _real_ Santa Cap," Morgan had specified, and so Tony was now calling Steve Rogers, to whom he had barely spoken in three years, and the said three years had come right on the tail of the two years of not speaking at all. And that... sucked, but that was simply how things were between them, and that was that. They'd both screwed up, and there was no coming back from that. On a few occasions since the Snap they'd had to work together on big rescue missions, but that had been strictly business.

"Hello?" Steve's voice sounded weird and convoluted, but it might have been the cell signal. It was never the way it should be near the lake house, and with everything he had to do, Tony never really got around to doing something about it.

Steve had answered the phone almost as if he'd expected someone else to call him from Tony's number. And no wonder. _We don't talk any more_ , was what Tony _didn't_ tell Morgan, because how could he? But they really, really didn't. Not unless they absolutely had to. Anger had festered, and then petered out, and then turned to awkwardness, because – _what do we do now? How do we go on from here, after everything?_ It seemed easier if they simply didn't go on.

_Hello,_ Steve had said, and what was Tony supposed to say to _that_? Hey Cap, how's life, you doing okay, what's up, how are you doing these days, nice day today isn't it.

What he said was, "What are you doing on Christmas Eve?"

That wasn't much better, but the quicker he got to the point, the faster this torture would be over. After all, Steve probably had plans... But no, it wasn't fair to hope he couldn't make it; Morgan would be so disappointed.

"Tony?"

That bewildered tone of voice again. It sounded exactly the way Tony felt. This was awkward to the max.

"Yeah." Tony swallowed. Tried to think of what to say next, because his first sentence was, horrifyingly, starting to sound as if he was inviting Steve Rogers over for a Christmas party or something, and if there was anything that could make this situation more awkward, it was that kind of misunderstanding.

The silence stretched.

"So, er, hi. Tony," Steve said, and then, with a certain defensive note, "I'm... I thought I'd go volunteer in a soup kitchen." As if he expected a negative reaction to this statement. As if he cared.

Halfheartedly, Tony rolled his eyes.

"Even though..." Steve went on, and then trailed off. There was the silence again, and Tony started to speak, to get this over with, when Steve went on, "Natasha is going to be at the Compound, and Carol promised she'd come by, and also Rocket, so, eh, Natasha though I should come as well. Do you, eh, do you want to come, did you want to...?"

Steve trailed of, and, good god, it was as if Tony was fishing for an invite. He was alone now, so he was calling Steve, of all, people, to tag along with him to Romanoff's little gathering at the Compound? Good grief, how pathetic did Steve think Tony was?

The fact was, Natasha _had_ invited him; well, she'd sent a Facebook invite, and Tony wasn't sure if he was supposed to be insulted or touched.

To put a stop to the horrible silence, Tony quickly said, " _No._ " Too sharp, and probably rude. "I have Morgan for Christmas Eve," he elaborated in order to soften his words. "She's spending it with me, I mean. I'm spending it with her." If he didn't stop talking right now, he'd probably say _we're spending it together_ , and that would be just too ridiculous.

This was supposed to be a simple and very straightforward conversation. Ask a question, get an answer, bye. With the two of them as participants, though, it turned into a misunderstanding fest with embarrassment galore. To an outsider, it would probably seem hilarious. They should sell tickets and popcorn. Tony's stomach was tied in knots, though, and he didn't think he could take this much longer, so he just plunged on.

"What Morgan wants for Christmas is to meet Santa Cap. The _real_ Santa Cap."

"The _what now_?" Steve asked, completely bewildered.

_Yeah_ , Tony thought, _my words exactly_.

"You _must_ know who that is," was what he said, however, "because you _must_ have approved those dolls." It took no time at all for Tony's reaction to turn into mild outrage, and it was the two of them all over again, the way they were now: misunderstandings, awkwardness, and outrage. Throw in some disappointment and there you were. Their favorite combo. Were they always like that. Tony couldn't remember any more. " _Someone_ must have approved the dolls, and I know for a fact you don't have a PR team to handle such things for you."

The alarm in Steve's voice would have been at least somewhat hilarious if the situation had been different. "What _kind_ of dolls, Tony?"

_Sex dolls, and I'm evidently asking you to dress up like one to meet my three year old daughter, you idiot._

"Red coat, bluest of eyes, shoulders like a coat hanger, come _on_ ," Tony said instead. "Okay, wait, I'm sending you a picture."

"Oh, _god_ ," Steve said after a moment. "These are horrible."

"Yep."

"Why is my head so _big_?"

"That's how dolls are today. All parents get nightmares. Cope, Rogers."

"And my eyes are all sparkly, with, with..."

"Yep. Are you telling me..."

"...with little snowflakes in them, and..."

"Are you _telling_ me," Tony spoke over him, "that you didn't approve them? Who holds the rights to your merchandise, anyway? Don't tell me it's still SHIELD."

"SHIELD used to make _merch_?"

The conversation was promptly turning into the theatre of the absurd, but perhaps it was better than the silences. Still, this time Tony opted for a pause, as the only option to get the convo back on track.

After a moment, Steve seemed to get it. He sighed. Said, "No, actually... I approved them. I think."

"You _think_?"

"All the profits go to charity," Steve said slowly, resignedly. "I just sign the papers. I don't really look at the designs."

It... made perfect sense, actually, and now Tony felt like a total piece of crap for making fun of him, but that was the effect Steve had on him. Whatever Tony did, he ended up feeling like the bad guy. He didn't know how to talk to Steve any more; had he ever known?

_'Normal' would do wonders_ , said a little voice inside his head, and it sounded suspiciously like Pepper. That was the voice he'd divorced, but that didn't mean that it wasn't right on occasion.

"So, did you, ah, did you call me to talk about the dolls...?" Steve began, and then he evidently remembered the beginning of the conversation and the reason of Tony's call. "Oh _god_ ," he gasped.

"You don't have to do it," Tony said quickly. "I mean, Morgan begged, and so I promised I'd ask you, because I can't say no to her, which is – I realize – not the best parenting choice, but right now I'm going with it. So, I had to ask, but listen, Cap, if you could just show up – for twenty minutes in the afternoon, I mean, you don't have to stay long, I don't want to keep you from your plans – and if you could have a chat with her... You don't have to dress up. She would be over the moon either way. And I'll..." He'd gotten so carried away that he was about to try and bribe Steve which was... ridiculous and offensive. Well. Not really bribe. To, say, Rhodey he would have said _and I'd love you forever_ to which Rhodey would have rolled his eyes and said _you already do, so I'm not getting anything new out of this, am I?_ And to someone else he might have said _and I'll make it up to you_ , but saying that to Steve just sounded wrong wrong wrong. Whatever he said to Steve promptly turned to wrongness.

While he was frantically reviewing his choice of words, Steve interrupted him. "Okay."

"And I'll owe you a solid," Tony finished before it fully registered with him what Steve had said. Then, "You'll do it?"

"You don't owe me anything, Tony," Steve added, and he sounded infinitely sad, and now Tony wanted to bang his head against the window he was leaning his forehead against.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable, this time. Rather, it seemed like a necessary pause for both of them to catch their breath.

"Thanks, Cap," Tony said quietly. "I wouldn't be asking if not for Morgan." _Yeah, right_ , he thought, almost snarling at himself, _I swear I wouldn't ask you to dress up as Santa for me alone. Jesus._

"Where do I get the costume?"

"Actually, you don't have to dress up," Tony said quickly. "I mean, it's really..."

"It's _fine_ , Tony. I don't mind. For the kid."

Tony didn't know what to say to that, so he opted for being practical. "I'll send you the costume, then."

"Oh, you own a Santa Cap costume, do you?" He could practically _hear_ Steve's eyebrows going all the way up. Also, the slight grin in his voice. Tony thought the banter may have been a tad forced, but he had to respect the effort. He was surprised to detect relief in his own heart. At least it wasn't so awkward now. Perhaps they'd waded through the awkwardness, all the way to the other side. Perhaps that was the easiest answer: to fall back into their old patterns. (Tony had lied; he _did_ remember what they used to be like.) It did _wonders_ for them the first time around.

"I dress up in it every night," Tony said lightly. "That was the reason Pepper divorced me, actually."

"Well, that explains it then," Steve smiled. "I'll be there around 5?"

"Great. Morgan will be so happy. This means a lot, Cap. Really."

"I'm not a Captain of anything much these days. Bye, Tony."

"Bye, Steve," Tony said quietly, but Steve had already cut the line.

***

During winter holidays, snow is generally a desirable, festive thing; white Christmas and all that. Tony wasn't a big fan, hadn't been ever since his joints started creaking, but Morgan was going to love it. Tony took out the sled and dusted it. Since it was still early in the morning, he went into his shed to work on a project, to kill time; when he emerged – or tried to emerge – a few hours later, he had to kick the door three times before it opened. Everything was blindingly _white._ And if he'd stayed in for a few hours more, he'd have been snowed in for real. Inside the shed. What fun.

He grabbed a shovel and cleared out a path to the main house and the driveway as much as he could, even though it was still snowing with crazy enthusiasm.

At 1 p.m. he was staring at the skies, drumming his fingers against his thigh, wondering shouldn't it start letting up by now.

At 2 the cable died, the way it usually did when the weather got on the shitty side; the internet went soon after, and with it his cell signal, of course. _I should have sorted this out,_ he thought, pissed at himself. A small private cell tower would have solved it, but it was too late now, anyhow.

He stared at his cell. He stared at the skies. He hoped Pepper was not crazy enough to try and drive in this weather.

Somewhat before 3 p.m. the signal briefly reappeared, and he got a text from Pepper. Apparently, they'd tried to get through to the lake house, but they promptly turned back. Since it was impossible to actually make a call, Tony texted Steve to tell him not to bother and apologized for wasting his time. Hopefully he wasn't on his way yet. He would hate the weather. The forecast was subpolar.

Tony's disappointment, like a big black dog, curled up inside him and dragged him down. He had been looking forward to spending a festive day with Morgan. But now, the house suddenly seemed big and depressive, and all the rural coziness appeared fake and weird; he'd built it for his family. Tony Stark, the newly single man, had nothing to do here; he should have moved back to the city. Still, Morgan loved the lake house, and he loved having Morgan in the lake house, and the lake house was where Morgan spent the first years of her life, so he wasn't ready to move on.

Around 5 p.m. or so something triggered the alarm around the perimeter. He'd set it up to detect large animals and, well, people. The property was private, and while he didn't mind hikers in general, the lake house was enough out of the way that rarely anyone ended up there without intending to; and Tony generally liked to drop by and take a look. So call him overprotective. It was the house where his daughter was supposed to be growing up. 'Simple living' was more Pepper's dream than his, and even though he'd truly come to love some aspects of it, he still missed having, say, an elaborate security system. If a bear started sniffing around the porch where Morgan could be playing, he liked to know about it. This went even more for people.

In this kind of weather, however, his first thought was that someone might need help. He activated the suit. As the nanites enveloped his body, he was outside on the porch already, at a run, and he took to the air, towards the place where the alarm was tripped. It was probably a deer, but it didn't hurt to check. He had a strange, disconcerting feeling about this, the heart fluttering in his chest telling him something was very wrong.

The partly frozen lake sped away under him. He could barely see for the blizzard. What he heard before anything else was howling and keening in the wind, an eerie, alarmed animal sound. Perhaps he was imagining it, but it sounded brim-filled with panic. He spotted the wolf next, nervous or in pain, tail curled between its hind legs, ears flattened back; it appeared to be circling a hole in the ice from a distance. Only then did Tony see a head above the water – a human head and two hands examining the ice at the edge of the hole. Tony swore under his breath and sped towards the person.

The man tried to pull himself up, and somehow, in the way his legs methodically pounded at the water, trying to propel himself out and up, in the way he attempted to heave his upper body onto the ice, Tony momentarily recognized Steve.

_No._

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck," he chanted in his head. For a second it seemed Steve's efforts were going to pay out, he was on his stomach on the edge of the hole, the wolf getting close, barking at him.

Then the ice broke again, like candy glass, and Steve's head disappeared from view, down, down. Terror gripped Tony like a hand made of snow and ice; he couldn't move. Luckily, he didn't have to; the suit was doing all the work.

Just as he was getting to the hole, the head surfaced again, gasping, gasping for air. Tony put his feelings on a back burner. He slowed down abruptly, hovering above. Steve looked up at him, blinked in incomprehension. His hair was wet, his face very red.

"Give me your hand," Tony yelled. Steve blinked for a second, then seemed to come back to himself. He extended his hand up, and as soon as it was clear of the water, Tony grabbed it and pulled him up, into his arms.

"What the fuck are you doing here on foot, what the fuck were you thinking, why the fuck were you walking over the frozen lake," Tony was muttering as he hugged Steve to himself with all his might, flying towards the cottage at top speed. He didn't have time to say anything else. Already they were on the porch, and then he was helping Steve through the door. And as they stepped in, Steve suddenly went limp in Tony's arms and collapsed.

With a frantic _fuckfuckfuck,_ Tony, still in his suit, grabbed him before he fell to the floor. "Friday," he snapped, snatching up Steve's bare hand – he'd lost his glove in the water. "Life functions!"

"Blood pressure dropping," Friday informed him. At the same time Steve took a long breath – so okay, thank god, at least he didn't drop dead on Tony, which wasn't unknown to happen after a rescue from ice water. But: "I detect faint arrhythmia, boss." _Oh no, no, no._ "This looks like circum-rescue collapse." 

Tony had come to the same conclusion himself. Frantically, he carried Steve to the couch, gently laid him down, propped his feet up with a bunch of pillows and blankets to stop the blood pressure from dropping further. But no – _shit_ – he had to get him out of the wet clothes first, get him warm. He started fumbling with Steve's jacket, but his own fingers were thick, unwieldy. Oh. Because he had the gauntlets on. After half a second's thought, he cut Steve's jacket open with a thin, well controlled beam. Then he got rid of his gauntlets, started pulling off Steve's wet sweater with his bare hands. It was colder than Tony ever imagined fabric could be, it slipped from his fingers and clung to Steve like a stubborn jellyfish. Tony brought a gauntlet back, painfully aware of his own clumsiness, inadequacy, then cut the sweater off too.

"Did he get water in his lungs?" Tony asked Friday, as he pulled Steve's vest off and grabbed a wooly blanket that he started tucking around Steve's torso. The skin under his fingers was sickly grayish, and clammy; like touching a fish. If Steve died like this, stupidly, from the only thing he ever feared, Tony would...

Biting his lip, shuddering, he tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Tony will – hell, he'll have to get Steve dressed in something dry and warm, the blanket wasn't good enough, but he had to peel Steve's pants off first, somehow.

This was when Steve's eyes popped open, his pupils huge, dilated. He looked at Tony without recognition for a second, and it unexpectedly, unjustifiably, broke Tony's heart in ten million little pieces. "Did I crash my plane?" Steve whispered.

Blinking away the stinging in his eyes, Tony opted for nodding his head. Technically, it was true, after all. He didn't want to confuse Steve further. With extreme gentleness, he started removing Steve's shoes and pants. Many years back, the whole team had taken a course on treating a cold shock victim (among other things). He knew what to do. It was just that his throat was tight ad his own hands were starting to shake, and he was scared the way he had rarely been scared in his life. Normally, in a situation like this, he'd be taking Steve to a hospital, and then he'd hover obsessively until the doctors threw him out. Still, while he could fly him there even in this kind of weather, it wouldn't be so smart to get Steve back out into the cold in this condition.

Steve was now naked, covered in a blanket on Tony's couch. Tony brought a few more blankets from the cupboard under the stairs and started tucking Steve in better. Steve tried to curl around himself, bringing his legs down from the pillow pile. He was starting to shiver in huge, violent shudders, and for the life of him Tony couldn't remember if that was a good sign or not. Whatever the case, the best he could do was try and get him even warmer. He threw a few more logs on the fire. A hot water bottle would have been useful, but he didn't have one, he didn't think. He ran and brought baby thermo-pads from back when Morgan was colicky. Still, one look at how tiny the pads were compared to Steve's huge body convinced him how ridiculous the notion was. Steve's teeth were now chattering like a woodpecker, and he needed to do something quickly.

Without a second of hesitation, Tony threw off his clothes, leaving just the boxers on, and crawled under the blankets with Steve. He fit snugly into the space between him and the sofa cushions. Steve's skin was unnaturally cold, like no human skin should ever be; but then Steve turned around to the side and wrapped himself around Tony. Was it just instinct, going for a warm body? Or was he actually aware of what was going on? There was no way to know that. Tony threw an arm over him, trying to pull him closer, willing his warmth to enfold Steve like a cocoon.

He wasn't sure for how long they lay like that, intertwined on the narrow sofa. Steve's body was cold, but his breath on Tony's face was warm, and the fire was slowly turning the room into a sauna, and it had to be okay, Steve had to be okay, because Tony flat out refused to live in a world in which that wouldn't be the case.

After a time, the shivering started to subside. Tony imagined he felt Steve's body temperature start to creep up. That was relatively quick, he supposed, trying to swallow the tears of relief before they could get out into the wild. The serum wasn't known for taking things slow.

"Tony? It's you." Steve's voice sounded sluggish, slurred, but when Tony looked him in the face, the blue eyes seemed better focused.

Tony made it his task to stay calm and reassuring.

"It's me, buddy," he said as clearly and soothingly as he could. "You fell through the ice on the lake. I found you and brought you back to the cottage. Didn't seem like such a good idea to try and get you to a hospital in this weather..."

"I'm gonna be all right," Steve said quickly. And even thought his eyelids were droopy and he seemed to barely be following Tony's words, he was himself enough to claim Tony needn't worry about him.

"Yeah, you don't know that," Tony muttered. Steve was vulnerable like this, limbs wrapped about Tony, body still shivering lightly, vulnerable and soft. In Tony, worry mixed with protectiveness, but the surprising new addition there was being royally _pissed_ at Steve that he let this happen at all. Tony knew that was completely irrational.

Steve's eyes popped open and he gave Tony a long, earnest look, far more alert that Tony would have given him credit for. "No, Tony, it's all right. It's... Oh _no_." His face suddenly fell. "The costume."

"The what?" Tony had no idea what he was talking about. And that was probably the cold shock, the confusion being one of the symptoms.

"Your Santa costume, for Morgan. It was in my bag. I think I lost it the water."

"Oh, fuck the stupid costume," Tony snapped half-heartedly, "and ditto for the bag. Buy a new bag." And he didn't want to be snapping at Steve; he wanted to pull him even closer, as if that was even possible, and to kiss him on the brow and to whisper _you stupid, stupid, stupid man_ , like the softest endearment of all. But Tony still had some self-control left.

Right about that time, a new problem presented itself. It was a creeping awareness that he was lying there, entwined in a most intimate cuddle-puddle with Steve Rogers. Back when he was undressing him, all he could think was how discolored Steve's skin looked, and how limp his body was; and Tony was shit-scared. But now that Steve's limbs had started feeling warm and alive next to Tony's, with his face only inches away from Tony's, there was a certain...physicality, that now arose and colored the situation. Once Tony started thinking about it, it became impossible to ignore. Tony immediately felt like a creep, and tried to turn his mind to other things.

Were Steve's eyelashes always this long, though? Yup, most definitely, and Tony knew that perfectly well, only he was never quite willing to admit it, even to himself.

Yeah, trying not to think about it wasn't exactly working.

It wasn't even that Steve was naked. Tony had been with naked people plenty in his life, in non-sexual or only semi-sexual situations, in assorted hot tubs at parties etc. It was more about the fact that this was _Steve_ , and he was so very close, and Tony hadn't properly seen him in a very long time, and now his life was in danger, and all Tony wanted was to hold him as close as possible. And also wanted Steve to hold _him_ , but he had to stop thinking about that pronto. It was ridiculous. The two of them could barely manage to talk to each other for two minutes straight without it getting weird. Well, none of this was going to help.

"Where are my clothes?" Steve suddenly asked, as if reading Tony's mind. And then, almost as a non-sequitur, "My ears are ringing." He was getting that far away look in his eyes again, and for a moment he blinked at Tony in confusion before he appeared to refocus.

"Tell me how you're feeling," Tony told him firmly, trying to anchor him.

"How come I'm naked?" Steve repeated, but it somehow felt as if he'd only realized it for the first time, all over again; as if he'd already forgotten he'd mentioned it a minute ago.

Tony's fear was cold and clammy like Steve's skin had been. He didn't like this. He didn't like the way Steve's mind wandered; he disliked his slipping in and out of focus, his disjointed words. He didn't like any of it at all. And when he was afraid, he wasn't the most pleasant person in the world.

"Well, next time I need to cut your frozen clothes off of you, I'll be sure to think about your modesty first." Tony's heart twisted at the sharpness in his own voice – what was wrong with him? "If I sound like an asshole," he added, trying to smile and probably failing,, "that's mainly because you got me really scared, okay? And a little bit because I actually am. An asshole, I mean. Now, how are you feeling? Do I need to ask you what year it is and who's president and all that?"

"You don't sound like an asshole. You sound shaken," Steve said with an astuteness surprising for his apparent mental state. "You all right?"

Tony decided to ignore this. "How are you feeling?" he repeated for the third time, more gently. "Steve. Please."

"F..." Steve began.

"If you say fine, I'm quitting."

"Quitting what, your nursing job?"

"If you're well enough to banter, you're well enough to drink tea," Tony decided, semi-grateful for an excuse to get out from under the blanket, now that Steve didn't need his body hit so desperately anymore. He scrambled out. "Friday," he snapped while he grabbed his bathrobe that was draped over the back of a nearby chair. "Scan his life functions again."

Tony listened to the report as he poured hot water from the kettle. The blood pressure was almost back to normal, and arrhythmia seemed to have subsided completely. Steve was still chilled through and shocky, but perhaps this wasn't a medical emergency anymore. Awesome news.

Faint rustling made Tony look back over his shoulder. Still cocooned in blankets, Steve was scrambling into a sitting position on the couch. His hair, longer than he used to wear when he was younger, now drying, stuck out at weird angles, and there were two feverishly red spots on his cheeks. He looked unfairly pretty like that, too, on Tony's couch, blankets and everything. Soft and a little sleepy and very, very human. He blinked at Tony and tried on a little smile.

Tony was about to gripe at Steve to lay back down, but that smile stopped him in his tracks; who could be angry at that smile? No. Tony realized his anger wasn't meant for Steve at all; it was aimed at himself, instead, because he let so many years pass without trying to reach out to Steve, to at least leave a window of communication slightly ajar; because he couldn't seem to talk to Steve at all; because he was unable to even pretend to be a normal person around Steve, for some reason. There was so much baggage there, so much resentment; also furtive, fierce longing that had gone and festered over the years, and Tony had no idea what to do with it now.

After Siberia, Tony had tried telling himself Steve obviously didn't care about him at all. It was a fantasy that brought him grim satisfaction. It helped him turn his own pain into anger; useful. But now he stood there remembering the look on Steve's face when Carol finally brought Tony back to Earth, the way Steve had frantically run to his side. The way he had desperately drank in Tony's face with his eyes. The same hunger was probably mirrored on Tony's own face as he took in the planes and angles of Steve's face in that moment, familiar and yet new, the recently acquired lines of worry on his brow. For a second, the only thing Tony was able to think had been – thank god he's alive. Because he'd been sure Steve would be among the half that had died, because he was too large for life, because he was too much for Tony to handle or understand, because it was Tony's fate to lose him over and over and over again, in a million different ways.

But this wasn't the moment for any of it. This wasn't the moment for Tony's baggage.

He carefully wrapped the mug in a tea cozy, so that it wouldn't be too hot for Steve to hold in his hand. Warm was good. Hot wasn't. He then brought it over, tried to smile back; felt like crying. He did his best to blink back the tears.

He pulled a small table over, put the mug down. "Wait for a little while, it's still hot," he warned, playacting normalcy even though his throat was horribly tight.

"Tony, what is it?" Steve enquired softly.

Tony stood there unmoving for a moment, like cast in stone. Then he plopped down into the chair opposite Steve. It probably wasn't the best time for naked honesty, but with so many feelings brewing inside him, the words were practically saying themselves.

"I could have lost you," he stated quietly. " _Again._ " They should be past lying, by now, with everything that they went through. Whatever they said to each other turned weird and awkward anyway; he might as well go with the truth.

Steve sat there, blinking at him for a few seconds. Then, " _Oh_ ," he said, realization dawning. "I fell into the lake. Didn't I?"

Tony straightened, suddenly focusing, He banished all the disjointed thoughts and emotions that were pestering him, clearing his mind for this very important piece of information.

"You're still addled, aren't you?" he said. "Can you tell me what you know. What do you remember?"

Steve paused. "Everything," he said slowly. "But I keep forgetting. I mean – no, that's not right. It comes and goes. I keep thinking I'm still in the ice. Only, ah, I'm obviously sitting here. It doesn't make much..." He trailed off.

"It's not abnormal to be confused," Tony told him, with a healthy dose of forced calm. What Friday told him reassured and grounded him. That was what he should keep in mind – that Steve's readings were almost normal. The serum had kicked in. Steve was going to be okay. "You are going to be okay," he repeated aloud, even though he wasn't positive as to which one of them he was trying to reassure. "And it must be your PTSD acting out as well. And no wonder. Please don't say you're 'fine'."

"I don't have PTSD," Steve said. "I just..."

"Oh _please_ ", Tony interrupted. "You'd have to be made of stone not to be traumatized after everything that happened to you." He jumped up from the chair, started to pace, changed his mind. "Nothing wrong with admitting it."

"We all went through a lot," Steve retorted quietly. He seemed to be better able to focus while talking to Tony. Noted.

"Yes, but don't tell me swimming in freezing water is fun for you. _Jesus_ , Steve." On an impulse, Tony reached out and touched Steve's cheek, soft and slightly scrapy. A reassurance Steve was still there, alive and warm, sitting on Tony's couch for real; not some kind of apparition.

Then he realized what he was doing, tried – lamely – to pretend he was checking Steve's temperature. He let his hand drop. Steve looked up at him with big, round, very surprised eyes, and Tony cursed himself in his head for being an idiot. He was about to apologize, when Steve suddenly got to his feet, wrapping the blankets around himself like a robe.

"Crap. The wolf," Steve said. "Oh, crap."

_Oh crap,_ Tony echoed in his head. Steve was obviously getting loopy again. While he didn't think a cold shock could permanently damage one's brain on a purely physical level, he didn't like what the repeated trauma – probably the biggest trauma of his fairly traumatic life – was doing to Steve. One moment he was talking to Tony, completely focused, the next he was spouting random words; could he be hallucinating? Was all of this too serious for Tony to handle, after all? He wished Bruce was here.

He put both of his hands on Steve's shoulders and gently tried to push him back down to the couch. Failed, of course "You shouldn't be moving around yet," he said. And, "Hi. It's me, Tony. You fell through the ice while you were crossing my lake – which, by the way, I want to know why, but that's for later. You're safe now. You..."

"I _know_ ," Steve cut him off impatiently. Lightly but urgently, he grabbed Tony's upper arms right under the shoulders and left his hands to rest there. "The wolf I saved from the water – did you see what happened to it? Did you see it?"

Tony frowned. Once he'd spotted Steve in that ice hole, he'd stopped paying attention to the animal. He'd forgotten about it completely, as a matter of fact. "It was... alive," he said, unable to remember anything else. They stayed like that, for a moment, staring into each other's eyes, holding onto each other's arms; not quite hugging, but not quite... _not._

Then the meaning of Steve's words penetrated. "Wait a minute, wait a _minute_ ," he said. "You didn't fall through the ice. You _jumped into the frozen lake_ to get a wolf out? You... you utter and complete idiot!"

He was in a perfect position to shake Steve by the shoulders, but he stopped himself right there. He was – as he was very much aware – also in a perfect position to press his lips against Steve's, just to ascertain he was really there, really alive. Just to try and get out at least a _part_ of all these mixed feelings he was struggling with.

"Tony..." Steve began, and that broke the spell, thankfully.

Tony breathed out. "I could have lost you," he repeated. And it was probably too much, but in the grand scheme of things, so what? So, Steve would know Tony cares about him? He could imagine worse things; for example, Steve falling through the ice and never coming out. Steve thinking Tony was indifferent to him, Steve thinking Tony never forgave him; that was _way_ worse.

Because – Tony couldn't lie to himself any longer. Steve must care about him too, in some way. It was obvious. As a friend, at least. He must care, because, no matter how kind and nice he was, he wouldn't be coming over here _on foot_ somehow (that was another thing he was _so_ going to have to explain to Tony) because Tony asked him for a silly favor.

"If I ask you to lend me some clothes, you're going to tell me to get the hell back to bed, right?" Steve asked, finding the time for an amused twitch of the eyebrows. Still, he sounded urgent more than anything else.

"If you think I'm letting you back out to go chase White Fang around the fucking snow-globe, think again," Tony said. They were still standing very close to each other.

"The animal will freeze to death. It had been in the water for some time. It was soaked through." Underneath the laconism, Tony recognized an echo of terror in Steve's voice, a hint of frantic look in his eyes. Suddenly he understood Steve's horror at the prospect of another living creature freezing to death like he almost did, understood what had probably propelled Steve to jump into the water to try and save the animal.

Tony sighed.

It couldn't hurt to go look for the beast, he supposed. It would only take him a few minutes. He'd be back before Steve finished his tea. He'd fly to the hole in the ice, look around, probably find out the wolf couldn't be located, and that would be it. His own conscience would be clear too. He didn't relish the idea of leaving the animal freezing and helpless either. And if he did happen to find it, he could bring it back, put it in one of the outhouses, turn on the heating, and call a vet or the animal control in the morning.

After Steve assured him he'd be okay to stay on his own for a few minutes, Tony stepped out of the bathrobe, activated the armor and got out. He was back in no time, with the big shivery animal in his arms.

He put it down on the rug – goodbye, rug, hello, world of dog hair – in front of the fire.

"You found it," Steve said, getting to his feet in his blanket. And then. "Oh, that looks like a..."

"Dog," supplanted Tony, deactivating the armor and reaching for the pile of his clothes on the floor. He wasn't going to be self conscious about semi-nakedness when they'd seen each other like that plenty of times, in locker rooms. He wasn't.

_That was in another life_ , he thought, because it seemed so long ago, before he'd discovered even the faint trace of feelings for Steve. And now there was something brewing between them, and he wasn't sure he wanted it to brew to completion, whatever it was, but oh, he wanted to sneak a peek and see if Steve was _looking._

"It's a big, stupid gooddamn pooch," Tony added to get his mind off of other things. The poor thing had looked so lost and alone, out there in the dark, not to mention half-dead, to boot. Tony immediately felt guilty for not coming for it sooner. "Found him not far from your ice-hole. Nearly dead in the snow. We don't know if he's going to make it, by the way, so please don't get attached."

It took Steve all of two seconds to get into action. It was a sight for sore eyes, really, to see him moving around briskly, once again focused, once again himself. He just needed something to do, evidently. The guy's about to go down with hypothermia? Oh, simply give him some dishes to do, he'll be fine again in a moment. An animal to save? Even better. He was in an out of the bathroom, bringing some of Tony's towels. "You're the one who dragged him home," Steve threw back lightly." _You_ don't get attached."

Despite the quippy tone, his eyes looked serious when he knelt on the rug by the dog's side and started crooning to it, murmuring nonsense. Quickly, he checked it for obvious injuries. The animal raised it's head weakly, then decided to push it's nose into Steve's thigh. The tail did a pitty-pat from side to side, just once, then went still again. Altogether, the dog's chances didn't look so bad, everything considered. Tony wasn't sure how else to check if an animal is well-oriented in space and time.

Now that he had a moment to look at it, Tony could say the dog was too large for a husky. It was probably a mixed breed. Despite its size, it definitely had a doggy build – broad hips, powerful shoulders, and it wasn't lithe like a wolf. Still, in the darkness and the blizzard it was an easy mistake to make. No, really, sprawled in front of Tony's fire the beast looked humongous; _much_ larger than out there, in the darkness and in the blizzard.

Apparently, he had an oversized pup and an oversized Captain America sprawled together on his fireplace rug. If both the man and the animal didn't look so bedraggled, there would be something decidedly kitschy about the scene, like a postcard or an ad. A big, blond, half-naked guy and a big husky dog; they only needed a bearskin to complete the visual but thankfully that hadn't been a part of the interior design of the cottage. Tony was never going to get the doggy hairs out of his good towels, though. With something akin to surprise he found that he didn't mind any of this one iota.

With a final long look, Tony joined Steve in front of the fireplace, taking a towel and patting the dog's back dry while Steve did it's tummy. The crystals on its fur had started thawing. "Just pat him gently. Don't rub. His inner organs..."

Steve smiled and nodded. "I know, I remember," he said. He wasn't looking at Tony as he went on. "You did a lot of saving tonight. It's always been your jam. You just can't resist, eh?"

"Oh please," Tony shot back. "Look who's talking. Also, if I hadn't gone to find the dog, you'd never have let it go."

"You didn't have to do it, though."

The only reaction Tony was going to deign him with was an eyeroll.

Bent over the dog, Steve considered Tony through the hair that fell over his eyes. There was something weirdly exciting in that almost covert look, so Tony quickly added, to distract himself: "Also, Morgan always wanted a puppy. But Pepper's allergic, so, ah, we couldn't really adopt before"

Steve looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind. He ran a hand through his hair, sitting back on his heels. Raised his eyebrows as if amused, but it, all in all, looked like an afterthought. "Oh, so now you're adopting this dog?"

"Morgan is," Tony clarified, running gentle fingers down the animal's spine. First the dog would have to go through training and whatnot, Tony assumed, to make sure he was safe for Morgan. But with the way the animal wouldn't run away and leave Steve in the ice, and with the trust it showed now, letting them handle it as they wished, it probably wasn't going to be a huge problem. Tony was going to check if the dog was freshly lost , but there were many pets that were left ownerless and alone in the Snap, and everything suggested the dog would turn out to be one of those. "Animals in the house are not my idea of a good time, trust me, but Morgan is going to be charmed."

Steve gave him the softest of smiles, as if to say _you can't fool me._ The truth was, Tony could never stand the idea of anyone suffering, human or animal, so that was that, he supposed. Oh, he knew this was going to prove a mistake, but after that look from Steve, it was decided. The dog was staying.

Soon enough, the shivering subsided a bit, so Tony left Steve to try and tuck the dog into blankets while he brought it some hot soup from the kitchen. Later on they would have to try and feed it something at least semi-solid, but for now warm liquids were the thing.

"I got some soup for you too," Tony called to Steve over his shoulder as he went back into the kitchen. The dog seemed to be doing okay, for now. It was time to get some food into Steve as well. He seemed to be recovering wonderfully, now that he had something to focus on, or perhaps it was just that enough time had passed. The serum was truly a marvel, but it needed some fuel for all the hard work it was doing. To see Steve now, it would be almost impossible to tell there was something wrong with him. Still, Tony wasn't about to forget the gray hue of his skin and the lost look in his eyes. His heart clenched into a tiny, throbbing ball in his chest.

"And a doggy bowl?" Steve called back, raising to his feet.

"Sure, Fido. It's here in the kitchen, by the sink." Tony thought his response sounded half-hearted. To distract himself, he looked around the kitchen, opened the fridge. There was so much _food_ everywhere. He'd went overboard, as he usually did, with the kid-friendly Christmas snacks, healthy and not so healthy ones– oh god, all the cheese reindeer and the banana snowmen and the Santa hat jello shooters (with no alcohol, obviously) and all the other atrocious things Morgan would have loved. It took him almost the whole day yesterday to make them all, and there was still a ton of ingredients for the dinner he had been going to make and the easy cookies he had been going to bake and decorate with Morgan.

"Could I borrow the clothes now?" Steve called out from the living room. "I keep tripping over the blanket."

Tony tore his eyes away from the food and peered through the door. "Nope," he decided. "You look _fine_ in the blanket."

Steve gave him a bland, amused look. "Oh, all right," he said, tucking the thing around himself and arranging it like a toga, with one shoulder naked. Oh, this was going to prove a mistake, wasn't it?

Decidedly ignoring the beautifully sculpted and in every way perfect upper arm, Tony grabbed a random snack and started chewing. "A strawberry Santa?" he offered.

Where was the awkwardness? Where was the inability to string two words together when talking to each other? Gone in the ice, Tony supposed. Gone when he had to cut Steve's frozen clothes open and when they cuddled, 99% naked, under the blankets. He would have expected that to make things _more_ awkward between them, but perhaps _more_ awkward wasn't possible, and at some point things had to start looking up when there wasn't any more _down_ to go.

Steve took the offered sweet delicately, careful not to crush the strawberry, and popped it into his mouth. "Thank you." So polite, so gracious. The little shit, Tony thought fondly. The man leaned on the doorway post and something in his stance made Tony aware – even _more_ aware – that he was naked underneath the blanket. Steve was doing it on purpose. He _must_ be – standing like that, looking like _that._

It was the relief that was making Tony flirt, he thought. Because a part of him, somewhere on the inside, was still shaking, vomiting at the fact that Steve easily could have died tonight. The fact that he survived the ice once was no guarantee – because here he wouldn't have frozen instantly, it wasn't _that_ cold. Here he would have started losing life functions slowly until he went under, and even the serum couldn't help with drowning. If Tony hadn't got paranoid and went to check the alarm... But he did, he told himself firmly. He did find him, he did save him, and here was Steve, perfectly warm, fantastically alive, and if Tony didn't flirt he'd get choked with joy and then Steve would notice something. Flirting was a venting mechanism. Flirting was safe because flirting, after all, didn't have to mean anything. If anyone asked, it was all a joke.

***

Steve had been sluggish, and then unfocused, but right now there was some kind of liveliness in him that made him want to laugh aloud. He suspected it had something to do with the absence of resentment or bitterness in Tony's eyes, the lack of standoffishness in his manner. It was like... well, like before, during that short honeymoon period of their friendship, after which everything had started souring, first with Ultron and then downhill from there. They had never really come back from that. Steve had been sure they weren't going to, but this? _This_ suddenly painted his world a hundred of vibrant, glorious colors, because that world had Tony in it again.

Just that Tony had called him had been enough, no matter how awkward and strange the conversation. Tony actually asked him for a favor. Steve would have gone anywhere, any time, just to see him.

Coming to, with Tony's warm, taut limbs wrapped around him seemed like a dream, so much so that Steve kept thinking it _was_ a fever dream. But it didn't end there. When Tony touched his cheek, Steve's chest had lit up with hope.

Was he trying to insinuate himself into Tony's life now that he was finally not with Pepper? Maybe, Steve thought, maybe a little bit? Was he a bad person for it? More like a crazy person, Steve answered his own question, for thinking something between them could be even possible after everything that had happened and everything they'd done and said to each other.

Still, Tony's knuckles lingering on his cheek, and that soft, intense look in his eyes – Steve knew he hadn't been imagining that. And then they dried and fed the dog together as if they'd been doing such things every day for years. They were comfortable next to each other, without much need for words to understand what they needed to do. And okay, it was toweling a dog dry, not saving the world, but it was... something.

"You're allowed into the kitchen," Tony now said. He was wearing a soft gray sweater and a pair of oil streaked jeans, and seeing him so relaxed and domestic, fussing around the kitchen, made Steve's heart do a crazy dance in his chest. He'd never wanted to hurt him. If only he could make Tony understand that, if he could only make him believe him.

Steve stepped into the kitchen, but Tony raised his hand, stopping him. "On second thought, you may actually get dressed if you want, you're beyond distracting this way. There are some clothes Rhodey left lying around over the years. In the cupboard in the living room. They'd be closer to your size than my pants, in any case."

The heated looks Tony thought he was hiding didn't exactly go unnoticed. Steve had never really known how to flirt, but right now, right here, with Tony, words were practically saying themselves. Perhaps it was the exuberance of Tony's company; perhaps he'd just waited for the right flirting partner.

Steve gave a modest look to his blanket. "No, no, I want to look my best, after all."

Tony laughed, if a tad uncomfortably.

The blanket was riling Tony up, and Steve couldn't resist. And Tony couldn't exactly tear his eyes away. Steve adjusted it, neatly stepping around Tony and lifting the lid off the pot. "Hmmm, something smells nice."

"Jesus, Steve," Tony said quietly. Steve glanced over his shoulder. For a moment, Tony looked somehow muted and seemed far away, even though he was talking to Steve. "I forgot you could be funny."

Steve blinked. "You forgot?"

Tony gave something like an apologetic shrug, if Steve could read him at all. "Don't mind me. I get weird in the evenings. Look," he nodded towards the pot, heavy-handedly changing the subject, practically wrestling it back to what they were talking about before,

"I don't do much in the way of cooking now that I'm, ah, on my own, but I like to keep a soup pot going. Perpetual soup – that's how Pepper... well, that's how Pepper used to call it."

There was this undertone of loneliness in Tony, and if anyone could understand that, it was Steve. The difference was, the lonelier Steve got, the more isolated he became. And Tony... reached out. He dropped these hints, or they escaped him of their own volition. Whatever the case, Steve knew what to do with it. The support group had been of immense help there. Even if talking to strangers, it was just the matter of standing there with some form of interest on your face and occasionally making an inquiring sound. People who wanted to talk, generally did.

So, he was going to give Tony an opportunity to open up if he wanted to, and if not, Steve wasn't going to pressure him.

"You miss her?"

"I... miss not being on my own," Tony said after a minute's thought, "which is, as you can imagine, not the great romantic statement one's partner longs to hear." He sighed, seemed to shake something off. "I don't really want to talk about my divorce." Okay, well, that was that, then. "Take some soup, Steve. Hell, take _all_ the soup. Warm liquid will do you good before we start you on something more solid. I don't think we should hurry with that, though."

When Steve first moved into the Tower, he was surprised to find out Tony tended to fuss over people. To bring them smoothies. Check if they had everything they needed. Cover them if they fell asleep on the couch. Steve was even more surprised – and embarrassed – to admit that he actually liked it, deep down. At first he thought he just missed someone taking care of him. Later, with something akin to alarm, he realized he actually, apparently wanted to be fussed over by _Tony_.

He'd thought that little, confused, warm feeling was gone forever from his life, but here it was again, a tiny pool of shy pleasure somewhere in his chest. He felt his eyes smile. "Thank you, Tony."

As Steve ate – the soup was excellent, hearty, with some spice to it and a lot of vegetables – Tony kept moving around the kitchen restlessly, opening and closing the fridge, the cupboards, the drawers. He was turning something over in his head, Steve could tell, and any moment now it was going to burst out of him. _You shouldn't be here_ , Steve expected to hear. Or _I can't stay here, I'm going to go away somewhere else for the night_. Or... Well, that wasn't quite fair. Tony's behavior was nothing if not friendly, and that kept a part of Steve on edge. It was as if he kept waiting for something bad to happen, just because this was too good to be true.

"You know what?" Tony finally stood still and spoke up. Steve raised his eyes in inquiry.

Tony met his gaze almost as if issuing a challenge. "What do you say I cook you a real, full-scale dinner?"

"Wait... _what_?"

"There's a ton of raw and semi-cooked ingredients. I'd planned, ah... Actually, I couldn't really decide what to cook for Morgan, so I decided to cook _everything._ And since she's not coming – well, here we are, right?"

Steve realized he was throwing about for a good reason to say no to what was basically a perfectly nice offer. No. Not perfectly nice. Way more than that. The offer was making him way too happy, and he'd learned to be leery of things that made him too happy. "Isn't Morgan going to come over tomorrow, or one of these days?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. Not tomorrow, we have plans for tomorrow. If the weather lets up, that is." He snatched another strawberry Santa. "Tomorrow we are going to a theme park and out to eat – all three of us, that's going to be fun, yay – and then she's going with Pepper to visit her family for a few days. Everything is arranged already, Morgan is looking forward to meeting her cousins and their numerous pets..." He shrugged, pretending he was cool with all that when he obviously wasn't too happy about it. He sounded as if he'd been trying to convince himself. "You don't change plans on kids."

Steve didn't have any experience with divorces or big breakups. To do that, he'd have to be in a long relationship first, which was also a thing he didn't have any real experience with. If this whole situation seemed a little harsh on Tony – well, surely Tony and Pepper knew what they were doing. Still, "But couldn't they delay the trip for a _day_? Morgan didn't get to spend her day with you. I'm sure she was looking forward to that too."

Tony gave him a grateful look, for some reason. "You think? Hm." He seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose I can talk to Pepper about it." He seemed to change the focus back to the food. "In any case – a lot of this stuff is more or less perishable. It needs eating up."

Steve got up and joined Tony by the counter. "Basically, I'd be doing you a favor?" he asked, amused.

"Basically yes. Exactly. I need your capacity for eating everything in the vicinity. So, that's a yes?"

Steve laughed softly. "Okay, Tony." What was this all about? Tony needed to occupy his hands with something, so he decided to cook? That was understandable. But maybe it was also something they could do together?

"Okay, great." Tony rubbed his hands together. "You go lie down for a bit, you still need your rest. I'll get to it. It will be ready in no time – well, not exactly, but we can have a late supper, in any case. You just go on."

Being dismissed wasn't an overly pleasant feeling, but it was a very Tony thing to do. He was starting a project. In such situations, he usually expected people around him to magically disappear from view and let him work. But this wasn't one of Tony's intrinsic designs, this was just dinner, and while the way people turned raw ingredients into delicious food still mystified Steve, he didn't think he needed to make himself scarce in order to let Tony cook. If he thought his presence was making Tony uncomfortable, he'd be out of the kitchen a million times already, but Tony was being warm and expansive and flirty, and appeared to be genuinely enjoying Steve's company. Steve didn't want to spend the evening dozing on the couch instead.

He really, really didn't.

So much so that he felt his heart-rate start to rise in protest, he felt blood throb in his ears and alarm arise in his chest.

He realized too late his own reaction was blown way out of proportion. He was planting his feet firmly on the floor, as if readying for an oncoming attack, squaring his shoulders, his stance sending a clear message: He wasn't going to be removed from this kitchen, he was going to defend this kitchen to the last man. And then he understood. It wasn't just about Tony. It was an instinctive reaction to the idea of lying down, because lying down meant vulnerability, and because immobility meant danger, and because sleep meant death. Death, darkness, cold. Being trapped. He didn't think he was going to go to sleep ever again. And even though, as if from a distance, Steve could tell this was irrational, there was jack shit he could do about it right then.

Tony was frowning at him. "You okay, buddy?"

"I... don't really want to lie down," Steve managed. He turned away from Tony, not wanting him to see his face right at that moment. So. He'd spoiled the nice ting they'd had going on, as well as the lovely offer of dinner. Great. He stood there, looking for a distraction, anything to do or say.

A picture of Tony and Morgan was on the shelf near the sink, so Steve came over to take a look, to busy himself with something. He'd seen Tony's daughter only two or three times before, when she was a baby. She was a lovely kid, and the soft look on Tony's face in the photo was something new and precious. And then Steve spotted another photo there, of Tony and little Peter, and he found himself once again struck with the realization how much sadness they all carried, and how much loss, and all he wanted was to stick by Tony right then, to work together in silence and perhaps to think about all the other people who also could have been there, with them, if things had been different, if they hadn't lost.

"It's the first time we actually get our asses handed to us, and we lose _everything_ ," Tony said quietly at his elbow, as if reading his mind. It figured. He and Tony had this weird, instinctive understanding when they weren't trying to gauge each other's eyes out. "Everything before this big threat, we handled it, one way or another," Tony added.

Steve's first impulse was to say _we didn't lose everything_ , but that was the support group talk; out here, in this small cabin away from the world, he felt he somehow had the luxury of _not_ trying to put a positive spin on things.

"We first got our asses handed to us when we let ourselves be divided," Steve said. "If we hadn't, that would have made all the difference." _And I'm sorry_ , he thought, but he had an impression that wasn't something Tony wanted to hear right then. All that saying those words would accomplish would be to unburden Steve himself, and thus it would be an innately selfish act. Besides, Steve had tried apologizing about it, before; never worked.

Tony gave him a long, speculative look. "You know, I tended to agree with you, but now I don't really."

With care, Steve put the photo back on the shelf. "No?" This wasn't what Tony said the last time they tried talking about it. Given, he'd been exhausted and emaciated and not at his most rational, surely; still, every word he'd said had hit Steve like a perfectly aimed arrow. It had lodged in his heart and stayed there.

Instead of answering the non-question, Tony asked: "Do you really think things would have been so vastly different if we'd been in the same place, at the same time when Thanos came?" If he didn't know better, Steve could have sworn Tony was talking to himself instead. Trying to convince himself.

Still not looking at him, Steve shrugged. Different? No, maybe not. But they'd have been together, and to him it would have been important, and he knew – thought – _knew_ Tony used to feel the same way. Even if it hadn't been rational. After all, feelings aren't supposed to be. "I don't know," he said, and it was the truth. He had no way of knowing that, and that was probably for the best, "I try not to dwell of what-ifs." This sounded oddly high-handed and preachy to Steve's own ears, for some reason, even though all he wanted to do right then was to sink into a chair and bury his face into his hands and stay like that for a little while. "I..." he tried, but that was another false start.

"So what _do_ you dwell on, these days?" Tony asked, with just a hint of an edge to his voice.

The answer was out before Steve got to think it over. Telling the truth was a reflex, an instinct. That was his one mode; the other was silence. It was either/or. "Right now? I'm wondering where we stand." As he said it, he turned his head to look at Tony, more pleading than searching. Still standing next to him, Tony blinked at him in surprise, as if under a counterattack. "You don't have to answer," Steve added more gently, reaching out to touch Tony on the shoulder, but changing his mind at the last moment. He caught Tony's eyes and smiled a tiny, rueful smile. "But, well, a hint would be appreciated, nevertheless."

Tony had followed the motion of Steve's hand with a minuscully arched eyebrow. "You want a hint? Okay, here's your hint. Resentment is corrosive and I hate it." Again, this resembled a challenge, the way Tony said it, but then, as if trying to defuse it, he shifted on his feet and bumped Steve's upper arm with his own. "Also, these serious moments would work way better if you weren't wrapped in a blanket. And now, do you want the damn dinner or not?"

And it wasn't a full-scale answer, but it was infinitely more than Steve could have hoped for. It wasn't just an olive branch. It was a goddamn tree trunk. "Dinner sounds lovely," he said, suddenly able to smile a full smile again. "How can I help?"

Tony also experimented with a smile, but then he seemed to register Steve's actual words. "What?" he said in mild outrage. "You don't have to lie down if you don't want to, but I'm not letting you _touch_ the food before it's done, you'd turn it in something horrible, fried and brown. I've _seen_ you cook. You can do the dishes afterwards if you want."

And so they were back into the safe, familiar territory of banter and bickering, but now it seemed more solid, less shaky, as if their talk had meant something after all, as if it could lead somewhere.

"I can manage prep", Steve said indignantly. "Natasha trained me. I can follow instructions."

"Ah all right," Tony relented. "But I'm not letting you anywhere near the thermal processing."

Steve let his eyebrows climb up and up. "Only you would call cooking 'thermal processing'."

Tony delegated him some veggies that needed cutting up. The planned menu, to Steve, seemed weird and endearing and he had to admit he never expected they'd be making mac and cheese soup and meatball pops with dip and tiny tacos and pizza muffins and dozen other kid-friendly dishes that, to him sounded like breakfast food. Everything was as healthy as possible under the circumstances; everything was also made from scratch, apparently by Tony. Steve found the idea absolutely adorable, which he wouldn't quite dare tell Tony; still when he _did_ try to mention something about it, Tony went on the defensive at once.

"Since you can't keep your mind on what you're doing," he said rolling out the cinnamon rolls dough that he apparently had sitting overnight in the fridge, "you'd better tell me what the hell you were doing, coming here on foot in this kind of weather." Steve detected a healthy dose of outrage in his voice. "I texted you not to come. Don't tell me you didn't get it."

"I didn't get it," Steve confirmed.

"The signal tends to be wonky around here, true" Tony said, compressing his lips. "But for fuck's sake, Steve, I thought you'd pop by on your bike or something. When the road conditions didn't allow for that, you didn't have to go all Robert Falcon Scott on me. Who does that?"

"Well, I found a dog," Steve said blandly, "I just needed a sled." Seconds too late, he realized this was a mistake.

Tony raised his eyes and glared at Steve. "Oh, how great, you think it's _funny_ ," he said. "I'm sure you're very used to throwing yourself into near-death situations routinely, but I don't have the stomach for watching you do that any more."

_I could have lost you._ Steve could still hear the alarm in Tony's voice when he said it earlier. And it made him feel guilty, but it also made him feel warm inside, that Tony apparently cared that much. Until recently, he'd thought Tony didn't want anything to do with him whatsoever, ever again. Still, he now felt horrible that he'd caused Tony distress. All in all, he was a cocktail of mixed feelings, and it didn't taste very good at all.

"I didn't mean for it to happen like that," he said with some regret in his voice. _You never do_ , he could hear Tony's response in his head, but that was just his own guilt speaking up. The truth was, when the weather conditions got worse and Tony stopped responding, he'd got worried, perhaps irrationally so. Steve sent a text and tried calling a couple of times, but the lines were dead, and he knew Tony was alone, all the way out here. Something in Steve didn't like that. At all. So much so that hiking over in the snow seemed like a good idea. It wasn't far from the Compound, really, even though the weather did make the walk longer.

"You seem awfully laconic all of a sudden," Tony commented with a certain sharpness in his voice.

Steve was stumped for words. He didn't know how else to tell Tony the simple truth, so in the end he opted for honesty. "I couldn't get through to you. I got worried."

He could have supplied half a dozen acerbic responses Tony could have had to that, but Tony seemed uncharacteristically quiet. Steve finished the veggies and transferred them neatly into a bowl. He looked up.

Tony was looking back at him; their eyes locked. Something Steve couldn't quite read seemed to pass between them. "Okay," Tony said softly. "That's ridiculous, but okay. I get it. But what about the dog? What were you doing on the lake in the first place? Because I know you're normally not insane."

Steve shrugged. "Nothing. I was passing by the lake. I saw..." He trailed off. Despite the gale, he'd heard it first: the cracking of the ice, the yelp, the splash. It had cut right through him like a shard of ice that slid into his heart and started turning him into a glacier. For a moment he hadn't been sure if it had been himself that had fallen in, gone under. There was darkness only. But then he forced himself to come back from that, and at first the whiteness blinded him (as if he'd been expecting some other kind of landscape), but then he saw it – the canine head above the water, the frantic paddling in a circle, bound to fail even before it started properly. And he didn't stop to think. He just acted.

The warmth on the crook of his elbow came from Tony's hand that lay there, squeezing lightly. Steve held his breath. He wanted him to never remove that hand.

"Steve?"

Steve suddenly had an impression this wasn't the first time Tony had called his name. "Sorry," he muttered.

"No, no," Tony said. "You okay?"

Steve nodded.

"Liar," Tony said, then flinched. Possibly it made both of them think of the last time Tony called him that. Tony certainly looked to be in distress over it. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he swore, not quite under his breath. "I didn't mean it like _that._ Do you need to sit down?"

"No, I'm..." Coming to think of it, he actually felt like he _could_ sit down, and that came as a surprise, even to him. "Okay," he said. And: "Tony, what are you doing?"

"I'm fixing you a sandwich to tie you over until dinner's ready." There it was again, that puddle of warmth, that strange feeling that he could be safe here if he wanted. Not that he normally felt unsafe, which made it all the weirder.

"Okay," Steve almost whispered, again.

"By the way," Tony said. "You don't have to tell me the story. I mean, I'm curious, even though by now I can guess what happened. I even had a speech ready – a very good one, about how you didn't have to be the resident hero 24/7, and how getting into the ice, with your PTSD – don't fight me on this – was immensely stupid. But, you know what, I'll give you a break."

"I never even stopped to think, Tony," he said, addressing the other man even though he felt like he was telling this to himself. It only now hit him how little control he'd had over his actions. That was sobering.

"Yeah, I figured." Tony sounded mildly resigned. "I think your weird, convoluted reaction to extreme cold is that you try to save everyone and everything from it. Trying to come over on foot hadn't been a particularly rational decision either."

"I suppose," Steve allowed, finishing his sandwich. Throwing politeness to the wind, he'd eaten it in three or four huge bites, and now he was starting to feel more like himself. "But you'd have done the same."

"What?"

"You can't convince me you'd have let the animal drown. Because I know you wouldn't."

"That's different, I have the suit."

"I've known you to do some foolishly brave things when you didn't have it," Steve countered.

Tony deflated a little bit, as if this had, in fact, been criticism. "Okay," he said, turning his back to Steve, needing a moment, leaning both his hands against the counter. "But I can't stand the idea of..." He trailed of, but Steve recognized that tone of voice and heard the silent 'losing you' nevertheless; there was that idea again.

He got up from the chair and, somehow emboldened by Tony's tone, laid both palms against Tony's waist. "I'm right here," he said, "and I don't plan on dying anytime soon."

It hit him violently – the realization what he was doing, how intimate this position was, how close he was to Tony's back and the prospect of even more nearness.

He stepped back. He never meant to impose on Tony, and he must be doing it right now. That was why Tony had gone so still all of a sudden. That must be it.

"Sorry, I..." Steve began, but _I don't know what got into me_ stopped in his throat because it would have been a big lie. He knew perfectly well. He'd known for a long time now.

Tony turned and shook his head at him, not so much in a ' _don't'_ way, more like a _'I don't know how to deal with this'_ way. "What do you say we get to eating? The roast should be ready and rested by now."

***

As they carried the trays of food to the small dining table in the living room, he could still feel Steve's big, warm hands on his waist, like the image of the sun superimposed on your closed eyelids.

He couldn't bear to think how that was making him feel. Not right then.

...Steve's hands, and the fact Steve had been so worried about him that he started on foot through the snow that he hated...

Oh, god.

Tablecloth. Think about the tablecloth, the one with Christmassy puppies; Morgan adored it. It was, however, a ridiculous things for two adult people to be having dinner on. Thank god Steve was here, though. Look at all this food. Imagine if Tony'd been alone; it would have been so depressive. But right now... it wasn't. He felt as far from depressed as he could get, and not just because he had company, but because it was _Steve_. The fact made him both alarmed and electrified; everything else around them had taken on a certain vague quality.

He'd _missed_ Steve, over the years. And missed. And missed. He'd missed him so much that it had actually turned to resentment and bitterness that he hadn't thought there was coming back from. But now? Now he could barely keep his hands to himself, and it seemed Steve was hardly doing any better, and it was probably the mom and dad of all bad ideas, the two of them together, a ticking bomb, naked wires. And he wanted it so badly. Steve did too, it appeared, and Tony didn't know what to do with the way it made him feel.

He started carving the meat instead. It was a small roast, but in addition to everything else, it made the amount of food really ridiculous. And then there were the sweets, too. He looked at Steve as he was passing him the plate; Steve was looking at all the food as well.

"You think I'm spoiling her rotten," Tony said quietly. "Don't you?"

Steve met his eyes over the plate stuffed with assorted snacks that were supposed to appeal to a three year old. Yesterday Tony would have sworn he cared jack shit about what Steve thought about his personal life, but now he had to admit it wasn't quite the case. He'd always cared about Steve's opinions. Too much so, Pepper had said on a few occasions. _I've never known you to care what anyone thinks, Tony,_ she'd said. _Why is he so special?_

To answer that, he'd have needed some serious soul-searching. He never really tried. Facts were the facts and that was enough. He was now wondering when the kernel of his apparent feelings for Steve had been born.

Steve paused to throw a few bites into his mouth, and then, when he'd swallowed, he answered the question carefully, "I think you love your daughter very much. And I think you are feeling guilty about the divorce. Jus like anyone would. So, about spoiling her – yes, you are? Maybe? A little?" Steve smiled. "But it's understandable. It's nothing to worry about."

"I just want her to know this is still her home. I want her to..." Tony sighed. "We would have made all this", he gestured at the ridiculous sweets, "Morgan and I. Together. If she still lived here."

The whole stupid mess of edible stuffs probably seemed excessive to Steve. Hell, he was a person who was going to volunteer in a soup kitchen on Christmas Eve. To his eyes and to his 40's sensibilities, having this much food must appear wasteful. He was probably right about that, too, but that question hadn't been the foremost on Tony's mind; all he'd wanted to do was to make a lot of fun things for Morgan.

He realized he was sort of glaring at Steve, who was looking at the items on the table, and then back at the sweets still left in the kitchen. Back and forth. Deliberately, Tony looked away. This was weird. One moment he wanted to pick up Steve, wrap him in blankets and ply him with hot soup until every trace of what happened to him faded, and the next moment he was about to pick a fight with him over something Steve _wasn't_ saying. He supposed they had a lot of talking to do if they wanted to try and patch up their friendship. Or whatever the hell this was.

Tony took a deep breath. "Say it."

Steve startled. "What?"

"Go on, say it. What are you thinking?"

"I can't believe you made all this from scratch. I didn't even know you could cook."

Oh. That wasn't what Tony expected.

"Most of it is just a matter of sticking things on sticks and painting them with food paints."

"Yeah, but I mean, it takes time, and it's not just that. You made roast. You made tiny tacos and meatballs and dips and everything, and the cinnamon rolls dough, you..."

"Oh, shit," Tony jumped up. "The cinnamon rolls." He ran over to the oven, saving them at the last moment.

When he got back, Steve seemed to have something on his mind. "I know you don't want to talk about the divorce – I don't mean to, but I have to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Do you think you and Pepper are going to make up?"

Toy didn't mind the question. What he hadn't wanted to do was go on and on about his feelings on the matter, his loneliness. He didn't want to hog either the conversation or his own thoughts. He'd wanted to stay in the here and now, with Steve. But, weirdly enough, right now, it didn't seem like Steve was asking him to ruminate on the divorce itself. It seemed like Steve was honest to god checking if he was available.

"No," Tony said at once. "Wherever did you get the idea? Because I keep mentioning her? We were married. I can't just..."

"Because of Morgan," Steve replied. "And because you were together for so long. For more than ten years."

"On and off," Tony hurried to correct him, then felt like a piece of crap for it. He sighed. "Actually, Pepper's dating someone. Semi-seriously. They were even supposed to go out tonight..." Then he stopped. What was he doing? Why was he so frantically reassuring Steve that yes, he was available, and no, he was not getting back together with the ex-wife? Did he intend to go through with this? With Steve? While everything with Pepper was so fresh, while his feelings were still so raw, because divorces get ugly even when you are doing your best to stay friends. This was probably an awful idea. And it couldn't possibly be fair to Steve.

"So... you're saying _Pepper's_ moved on?" Steve asked slowly.

Still, Tony wanted to tell him the truth – he wanted to tell him everything, really. It felt liberating – to present the facts and – oh, hell, could they discuss what was going on here? That would require actually acknowledging this _something_ that was rapidly heating up between them. Well, if Tony turned on the charm, he was pretty sure he could get Steve into bed, but he wasn't so certain he could actually _discuss_ things with him. Aloud, with words. Using voice. But he had to.

"Look," he said. "The point is, Pepper was going to go on a date with the guy – a perfect specimen, by the way, tall and blond – sorry – works with kids too, a real stand-up person. And if I did a little background check, who can blame me? He's going to be around my kid? In any case, my point here is, she told me about her big date, and I didn't feel any jealousy over it. Not a smidgeon. Zilch. So, that's your answer, I suppose."

"You sound a _little_ jealous," Steve said with a small smile.

Tony huffed. "No. Okay, yes. Of Morgan! She's just turned three. If this dude charms her, I'm going to throw him into the lake and not feel sorry for a second."

Steve had the decency to laugh, the fiend. "She's always going to love you best, Tony," he said then, which somehow made everything better, Tony was stunned to realize. "You're a wonderful Dad. I know you are. I can see it."

Why was it so easy to believe Steve? When Tony tried telling that to himself, it never worked, but once Steve put it to words, it was like a charm taking hold.

Tony's throat suddenly felt tight. "I thought..." He tried to smile, but his eyes were beginning to sting, and what was with him and tearing up tonight, what was his fucking problem? "I thought you were going to tell me how he's probably very nice and that I should be happy I have Pepper to co-parent with, with her sound judgment and strict dating rules, and not someone weak or flaky or boy-crazy."

Steve pierced him with his eyes. "I think you're telling _yourself_ that, Tony." Damn the man for telling the truth. Tony would have welcomed an empty platitude from time to time. No. That was a lie. All he really wanted was to spill his guts in front of Steve and hear what Steve had to say, see that Steve accepted him, have Steve tell him _you're okay in my book._ Was that pathetic? Without a doubt it was.

"And also," Steve added as an afterthought," I'd never use _boy-crazy._ " He smiled again, right at Tony's face, damn the man.

Tony jumped to his feet. Then he reconsidered the hasty decision, because the food was down there, on the table, and so was the wine, and he could better hide behind food and wine. Still – he wasn't sure he wanted to hide anything right then. He drummed his fingers on the table, decided sitting back down would make things even worse, then went over to the fireplace, taking care not to step on the sleeping dog's tail. He leaned against the mantel.

Steve inclined his head and looked up towards him. "I get the feeling you keep expecting me to say something cutting to you," he said mildly.

Was that a faint trace of hurt in his voice or was Tony imagining it? And Tony knew he wasn't being fair. Steve had been nothing if not, well, sweet to him this whole time. Perhaps that was what all the sadness after the snap did to Steve – made him less full of expectations, less uptight about it, and thus gentler. Tony himself had changed too. They all had. Or maybe Steve had always been like this; maybe it was just Tony that saw him with different eyes now. In any case, it was unfair to keep having these unfinished arguments with the old Steve in his head.

At least he owed him an explanation.

"All these years that we haven't been talking," he said slowly, looking somewhere to the left of Steve head, "I kept hearing your voice in my head, Steve. Judging. Criticizing me. For everything."

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but Tony was quicker. "I know that wasn't really you, and I know it's not fair to you."

Steve got to his feet and in two strides he was at Tony's side, by the mantelpiece. "It's not," he confirmed. Now it was Tony's turn to start to speak and be cut off. "Want to hear something strange, though?" Steve went on. "I have _your_ voice in _my_ head too. It thinks everything _I_ do or say is cheesy and tacky."

In a flash, Tony remembered the strange defensiveness in Steve's voice as he told Tony he was going to be volunteering tonight. Tony instantly felt like shit – what else was new? – for thinking Steve was simply being a righteous ass about it. "Like your work at the soup kitchen or your support group?" he asked softly. It was about time they stopped assuming what the other would say; it was high time they started actually talking to each other. Really talking. Even if nothing happened tonight – which would probably be for the best, anyway. Even in that case, they couldn't let this chance slip away. At least they could use it to repair what they'd lost. They obviously meant something to each other. They could at least relearn how to be friends.

"Yeah, like that," Steve replied with a wry smile.

Something caught in Tony's throat. "I don't think you're cheesy, Steve. I think you are..."

_Wonderful_ , was the word at the tip of his tongue. Yes, he'd seen Steve's bad side, his stubborn side and a whole lot of very human faults. Everyone had those, and Tony dismissed them out of hand. In a greater sense, he realized, despite all that, he thought Steve was this wholly wonderful human being. So, it was infatuation. So what? Perhaps his awareness of Steve's faults meant Tony's feelings for him were more mature. Or, then again, maybe it didn't. In any case, he could hardly come up with someone he would rather have at his side. Yes, after everything.

Tony realized he'd trailed off mid-sentence. As he watched Steve's face slowly start to fall, he recognized Steve was expecting to hear something different and not 'wonderful' at all. After all, the last time Tony had let himself act as a judge of Steve's character was when he was yelling at him at the Compound right after he'd come back from space. So many things, festering between them. Could they clean it all up? If they really wanted, if they actually tried? Tony believed there was nothing the two of them couldn't do; but then again – infatuation.

He was hot from standing so close to the fire, sweating uncomfortably. The flames danced furiously in the fireplace, making shadows cavort around the room, casting Steve's face in unnatural red light, making the angles sharper, making him look older and almost gaunt. The sight nearly broke Tony's heart in an instant somehow. It became clear to him now that Steve had been ruminating on Tony's words all this time, torturing himself. And Tony had... meant them. At that moment in time. For all of five angry, hurt, over-exhausted minutes before he fainted.

So many things needed clearing out.

Tony opened his mouth to say something, but Steve cut in. "I never wanted to hurt you, Tony. That was the last thing I wanted. I..."

"I _know_ ," Tony said emphatically, catching both Steve's hands in his own. Which might have been a mistake, since they were so big and warm that Tony had to suppress the urge to hug them both to his chest.

"Do you?"

" _Yeah_ ," he said, still not letting go of Steve's hands because they felt too good in his grip to leave alone. We all have our limits, he thought. And then Steve squeezed back, and for a moment Tony thought he'd lose his footing. He tried to concentrate on his words instead. "Yeah, I know, I had a lot of time to think about it and I know. I understand."

"I wanted to be there for you, I swear," Steve went on. "But I didn't think you needed me. I thought... I didn't know what you wanted from me."

"I just wanted you _there_ ," Tony said, aware that some of the old pain was seeping into his words.

"I _want_ to be there now. Still. If it's not too late. Tonight, I keep thinking..." Steve broke off. "After Siberia, I thought it was way too late already, but then you said... In the Compound, you..."

Steve looked like he was breaking, and it broke Tony in turn, and all he wanted was to fold Steve into his arms. But they needed to have this talk, stunted and meandering as it was. Tony needed to explain, to make Steve understand that Tony didn't mean everything he ever said, and even if he had meant it at the time, perhaps he didn't mean it any more. Still, what he managed to get out, in a raw voice, was: "I think you keep underestimating how much I need you." He was staring into Steve's eyes, and Steve was staring right back, and Tony realized they were still squeezing each other's hands for dear life. "Sorry," Tony muttered. "I'm coming on too strong. Don't..."

Steve kissed him.

Tony didn't know if Steve had pulled him towards him or if he himself had leaned forward, but the next thing he knew, Steve's lips were on his, hot and sweet, and it was as if something warm and fresh coursed through his whole body, thawing, cleansing. He was still holding both of Steve's hands in his. Now Steve shifted the grip, interlaced their fingers. He pulled Tony closer, and Tony let himself be enticed for a moment longer, and another moment after that, letting his body mold itself against Steve's. And then, with a final, regretful pressing of lips against lips, he pulled back. It required a greatest effort of will. "Not a good idea," he whispered, but still he couldn't make himself let go of Steve's hands. Gently, Steve pulled Tony toward him again, more signaling than actually trying to move him. Tony's heart didn't need much convincing. He melted against Steve again, aware, savoring every second. "Okay," he whispered, "just one more time." And then they kissed again, longer this time, bolder.

"Do you want me to let go of you?" Steve whispered against Tony's lips.

Tony disentangled his left hand from Steve's and let it roam up Steve's back, until it encountered the edge of the blanket wrapped around his torso. It would be so easy to just let it slip down to the floor. So easy. Tony let his thumb tease along the edge, across Steve's back. Just a second longer, he thought, aware he may be lying to himself. But he should pull back. He _should_ and he will, just.... _Just let me have this, a little taste, a touch, a kiss._

"No, but you should," Tony whispered back. "It's not a good time and all those clichés." He wasn't moving away. Neither, for that matter, was Steve.

"Why not?"

"I just... I don't want you to end up hurt. I don't want you to be the rebound."

"That's all?" Steve asked quietly, dismissively, as if it wasn't important at all.

"That's _plenty_ ," Tony replied with a quite ridiculous hint of indignation in his voice.

"Do you still love Pepper?" Steve. Trust him to cut to the chase.

Tony considered. It didn't really need any more consideration, but cursorily, he checked his feelings. There was nothing there any more. "I did," he said quickly. "I don't."

"Do you want this?" Something in Steve's tone was sheer stubbornness, ticking boxes one by one, trying to remove Tony's arguments. _Do you want this_ , he asked, and if Tony said no, Steve would let go and that would be that.

He didn't want that to be that. That was the _problem_. "God, yes," Tony breathed. "But, Steve..."

Tony was already looking up into Steve's eyes, so it absolutely wasn't necessary for Steve to raise his hand and tilt Tony's chin even further up, brushing his cheek with his thumb. But oh, it felt divine. "Waiting for the perfect time never turned out to be such a good idea, in my experience," Steve said softly.

Tony swallowed. Steve was wearing down his arguments, but he didn't have to bother. Just looking into his eyes would have been enough. And Tony couldn't look away.

He still felt compelled to say, "I can't guarantee you that I'm emotionally ready for that kind of relationship."

"Good to hear you're already talking _'that kind of relationship'_ ," Steve said, and Tony may have been trying to have a semi-serious discussion, but Steve of course had to turn it into banter, damn the man, and he was irresistible while doing it, to booth.

"Am I going too fast for you, Rogers?" Tony asked dryly, deftly undoing the blanket and letting it slip to the floor. "Want to try casually dating for a couple of years instead?"

The sudden nakedness didn't seem to perturb Steve in the least. He made half a step to the left, guiding a very willing Tony to lean back against the bricks next to the fireplace. "What I want is to get you to bed and keep you _there_ for a year or two, and _then_ we can figure out the dating thing. I was never too good at dating anyway."

"I'll hold you to that," was the final thing Tony said for some time, and he said it just so that he'd have the last word. And then, for both of them, it was high time to stop talking.


	2. Chapter 2

Coda 1

Tomorrow morning, the snow stops and the roads soon become passable again. They take the dog to a vet clinic. The vet decides to keep him for a couple of days in order to make sure he is all right, since Tony has no experience whatsoever with caring for canines. But the dog is going to be just fine, the vet promises. Tony isn't going to mention anything to Morgan yet, though. He decides to keep it as a surprise.

After this, Tony asks Steve to accompany him – _just walk me over, stay for a minute, then you're free to go_. Steve wonders if Tony needs support or if he just wants company, and then he remembers – of course, he's supposed to be Santa Cap. Tony has promised Morgan she'd meet him. But it's not just that, because, after perhaps five minutes, when Morgan loses interest a little, Tony still seems reluctant to let Steve go. He captures Steve's hand as if Steve is trying to escape. Steve can feel Pepper's eyes burning into the side of his head even though she's not even looking at him, at least not openly. Maybe it's just his imagination. And Tony and he don't kiss, they don't even hug, out of discretion. Still, he can tell Pepper already knows. Tony wants to talk to her about it – about _them_ – later, but Steve thinks she can tell everything there is to tell.

Before he leaves, Steve observes Morgan with Tony, Morgan with Pepper, for a few moments. He notices the way Pepper's lips tighten when Tony jokes around with the little girl – some adorable Tony nonsense about whom she loves best and inventing a scoring system. He observes, also, how Tony's hand twitches when Pepper starts to reprimand Morgan about the impolite way she greets Steve, and also when Morgan knows what her Mom is about to say and corrects her behavior almost too quickly. Already, Morgan is two slightly different people, one for each parent. But perhaps that would have happened regardless of the divorce. Perhaps there is some super secret father-daughter space where mothers are not invited; perhaps there is a certain mother-daughter wordless symbiosis in which everyone is a third wheel, even Dad. Maybe things even out in the end; or, then again, maybe not.

Steve leaves Tony with his daughter and his ex-wife, but as he looks back over his shoulder, their eyes meet and Tony mouths 'later'. Steve is overwhelmed with an unsolicited, warm idea that all the laters could possibly be theirs from now on. He supposes he is crazy. Oh well.

***

After they finally put an overexcited and overtired Morgan to bed, Tony is out of there like a lightning, before Pepper can offer him a cup of coffee out of politeness or habit, just because that's what they always used to do. Touch base at the end of the day. That used to be the highlight of his evening, the few moments when he finally relaxed and recharged his batteries, because having a child is an exhausting full-time job, but having Pepper there made it easier, at least at first. But gradually, invisibly, the ritual became something that would only drain him further, at best. They kept at it because Pepper thought it meant so much to him, and he thought it meant so much to Pepper.

They say having a child to save a relationship is a terrible idea. What about when you decide to save your relationship because you can't save the world this time around, and you need to save something, at least? Morgan is a part of the whole story. She tentatively emerged as a clump of cells while Tony was still in space. He'd wanted her, fiercely so, and that was something that never would change. Then Pepper decided she wanted her too, and she decided to keep the pregnancy. At first, after Morgan was born, it all worked in a weird, push-me-pull-you sort of way, but it did work. Still, the strain that a kid put on their relationship was something they never could have anticipated. Perhaps they were too old or just too tired. Not for her, no, never that; but they became too old and too tired for each other soon enough. It took them some time to notice; they thought it would pass. Growing apart is a sneaky process, and once you take notice of it, it's often too late.

Right now he wanted to see Steve like a drowning man reaching for a life buoy. Just a minute would be enough. Just to touch him for a briefest second and rest his forehead against Steve's shoulder. Just that. And when did _that_ happen?

Tony chooses not to think on that further.

He drives to the Compound. It will be awkward, he knows, but he doesn't care right now. He's wrapped in the fact that he can go see Steve and Steve will want to see him right back. The rest of the word seems vague and irrelevant.

Also, he's invited. So to say. If you count Facebook invites.

Steve is not there when he enters. Tony is assaulted by the sight of Natasha instead; he prefers not to see her, usually, because that way he can pretend he forgot how much he misses her.

"So good of you to RSVP," she says dryly, but her eyes crinkle and sparkle in welcome. Or so Tony imagines..

"Perhaps I'm here because I decided to go sit in my own room for a while," he replies, feigning indignation. "I still have my room here, right?"

They hug, and they hold each other, and it takes a long, long time to let go of Natasha, because Natasha also seems reluctant to let go of him.

Carol is also there, and, interestingly, Nebula. Tony is always happy to see both.

Bruce is still not out of his green phase, and Tony sometimes misses his human face, but he at least talks to Bruce semi-regularly.

The raccoon he can't exactly wrap his head around yet. "Do I shake your paw or do I pet you?" Tony asks.

"Try the latter and I will light you on fire," the furry guy says pleasantly. Tony gets a feeling they would get on splendidly if they got to know each other, but perhaps he's just in a charitable mood.

He and Steve decided to tell their friends together. But now, as Steve gets back from the bathroom, he spots Tony, and Tony spots him, and they are in each others arms before they can remember what they agreed. Tony feels instantly invigorated, and the feeling is at the same time like coming home after a long day and having the first sip of coffee in the morning.

"Is this normal?" Nebula asks, nodding at them coolly.

Tony meets Natasha's eyes as he and Steve break apart. Natasha deadpans. "Whatever," she tells him. "Just don't break Steve."

Tony is about to joke, to say _Please. We always break each other. It's mutual_ , but the words clog in his throat. Steve saves the day, because otherwise it would seem as if Tony Stark didn't know what to say. "So, I'm the breakable one and _he_ gets the shovel talk. Real nice, Romanoff."

And then they move on. Only Bruce lets himself look decently shocked at the news of the two of them together. After Tony triumphantly starts pulling out leftovers from last night from a bag, everything descends into the normal, food-centered chaos. Even with the new people there, it somehow feels he was never away.

***

Tony pulls Steve away from the others at some point. He coerces him into going outside, all the way to Tony's car.

"Is this a kidnapping?" Steve asks placidly, and Tony has to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at him. He just snorts instead. _This_ , he thinks through the slight haze of exhaustion, _this is happiness._

"Way better than that. I brought you something." Tony says, opening the trunk of the car.

"I thought we agreed this morning," Steve says. "No presents."

"It's more of a... souvenir," Tony says mysteriously, making a show of rummaging around. "Here it is."

He passes it along to Steve.

"That's... my shield," Steve says, and then, "...made from styrofoam?" He laughs.

"I stole it for you," Tony says with some pride. "From the amusement park. Don't worry," he adds quickly, before Steve can say something or just give him a reproachful look, "I left a compensation."

"A compensation," Steve says flatly, and it's not even a question. The question is, however, implied.

"I stuck 100 bucks on your statue. With a piece of gum."

Steve is still laughing silently two minutes later. "How old are you?" he asks, trying to sound all serious and adult and failing miserably.

"Oh, please," Tony says. "You love me. Also, I spent a day hanging out with a three year old, what do you expect?" And then he realizes what he's said and freezes.

Steve realizes as well, evidently. He lets Tony stew for a couple of seconds. "I actually do love you, you know," he says lightly, as if it's of no consequence at all, but his eyes are belying his tone.

"I kind of made you say it, didn't I?"

Steve shrugs. "Honestly? Should have told you long ago."

"Yeah," Tony says. "You should have. And also, I love you too. You figured that out, right? Because it took _me_ some time." It seems to him he's loved Steve since forever, in one capacity or another, in one way or another, reluctantly, bitterly, uselessly, as a friend, an adversary, a polar opposite, someone who let him down and whom he let down in turn. But not like this, not romantically, not hopefully, not with a view of the future. It's never been like this before, with Steve, he's never felt quite like this. It's as if he had to have all the other boxes checked first, with him, to be able to have this, in the end.

"And I plan to give you back the real thing too," he added, because he'd thought it was self-evident, but then he thought maybe it wasn't to Steve. "It's always been your anyway." Like Tony should have been, perhaps. In a different universe. But, no. Maybe they had to go through everything in order to lend here, together. That's what Tony chooses to think.

"The real thing?" Steve sounds confused now.

"The shield." Tony grins to disperse his own serious thought. This is a night for happiness. "As soon as I find it."

"Why, where is it?"

Tony new perfectly well where it was. He's held it in his hands a thousand times, wondering how things went so much to shit between them and where he went wrong. But Steve's face is also getting pensive, so Tony has to do something about that, and being obnoxious was his safest bet. After all, the advice you most often hear is _just be yourself._

"The last time I saw the shield, Morgan was putting her Darth Vader plushy to sleep in it," he deadpanned.

"Right."

"Or maybe Pepper was making pancakes in it."

Steve throws a snowball at him. Tony ducks.

Because, it means everything to him that they can now joke around with each other. Even though not everything that needed healing is yet healed, even though a lot of talking has yet to be done, there is a fundamental understanding between them, or at least a fundament for a fundamental understanding, so to say; and they both know that, whatever else may be true, they mean the world to each other.

"Or Rhodey and Happy were using it as a frisbee."

"Screw you, Tony. Kiss me."

"Okay on both accounts."

He kisses Steve.

It's some time before they go back to the others.

***

Very late in the evening, all of them decide to go out for a walk. It's well after midnight and it's freezing outside, and everyone is a little drunk (even Steve, on some alien liquor Carol brought), so when someone (Rocket?) lets the first snowball fly, it all descends into chaos super fast. Before Tony knows it, Carol is dragging Steve away (because _the two of you can't be a team, it's lame_ ), and Nebula is saying "I will end you all", and he is teamed up with Natasha, sheltering behind a snow drift that is now a provisionary fort.

"You having a good time?" she asks. And while Tony wants to quip about how wet feet and kneeling in the snow are his idea of a very best time, he doesn't. He's not quite sure where he stands with Natasha any more. He doesn't want to spoil any more of what's left between them.

"Not terrible," he says, because he doesn't want to be unfriendly, but he'll be damned if he admits he hasn't had so much fun with friends in a very, very long time. "I kind of missed certain aspects of this." He waves his hand vaguely.

This makes her roll her eyes. She peers over the edge of the fort, surveying the situation, then ducks back. Tony gets the impression her heart is not really in the snowball fight. "You could have dropped by anytime before, you know" she says. "Even when you weren't screwing Steve."

"You could have invited me."

"Do you really need an invitation? To come to your own HQ and see your friends?"

"I'm not sure that we are friends, exactly" he says, and he is instantly sorry, but perhaps these are days for the truth.

"Yeah, I'm not either," she says. He can see she's hiding hurt, though. Natasha is easier to read these days. Maybe she's losing touch in the aftermath of the Snap, or maybe it's that she's quite drunk. They both are.

"I think we're past that phase," he adds then, and that's another truth. "I think we've moved past friendship into a whole new territory."

"Oh please," she says. "If you actually considered us family, you would avoid us like plague all year, but then you would show up around the holidays to get wasted and pick a fight with everyone."

"Is that what families do? I don't have much experience on that front."

"Yeah, I don't either," she laughs. "But I'm now hoping we'll be seeing more of you in the future."

He imagines this is how it feels to have an estranged sister you don't really talk to, and when you do, you bicker, or you fight, and she's a pain in your butt, and then you stop talking again because it's not really working, and when you once again think you'll sever the ties once and for all, something happens, and you run into her by chance, and then you are laughing together at something inappropriate while everyone is giving you strange looks, or there's a moment of an almost arcane understanding between the two of you, no words needed, or she texts you out of the blue regarding something you've been considering in secret, something you would never tell anyone except maybe her, and then you become aware – _again­ –_ of the hole she left when she went her own way, and it hurts, but even if the two of you can't figure things out, you are fond of that hole and that hurt she left behind because they tell you she's once been there, and that means to you more than you can say.

If he learned something yesterday, it's that it's worth trying to say things to people before they start falling through holes in the ice and getting hypothermia and stuff. Still, even though he normally has no problem with the verbal side of things, he has no idea how to put any of this into words. He's willing to try, though, at least a little bit.

"I miss you, Natasha," he says softly.

But at the very same time, she is saying: "About Steve..."

Oh, there it is, he thinks with some resignation. This is why she's teamed up with him, and this is way she's only pretending to be taking part in the snow fight.

He was being an idiot. And Natasha is Steve's. She's his special friend, his adopted sibling, his anima. Tony is happy they have each other, he is. It would be petty to be jealous of that; but then again, he's not exactly a stranger to pettiness. Maybe he can make a piece with all this in time, or maybe he can shorten the process by cutting his own head off. That should solve the problem.

"Yeah, of course," he says, rolling his eyes. Here comes the obligatory shovel talk in some form. "Shoot. If I hurt Steve, you will – what?"

She gives him a mildly outraged look. "It's not _Steve_ I'm worried about," she says.

"Oh," is his very intelligent response. And, "Really?"

"I'm actually happy for both of you. And I'm understandably concerned for both of you, as well. But _you_... I can see you're _all in_ already, Tony..."

The way she says it, it sounds like a bad thing. And then he suddenly finds a different meaning in her words, and it makes him feel all the cold around them, right to the bone.

"You don't think Steve's all in?" he asks quietly.

"No, I do," she says. "I _know_ he is. He's Steve. He wears his heart on his sleeve. But that's... different."

"How is it different, why would it be different?"

"Because," she says patiently, "you just got out of a painful divorce, and you are bound to be in an emotionally wobbly place, and, it's not _Steve_ that tends to invite people he barely knows to live with him in his home after one battle, a lunch and some bonding. You don't have the best track record, Tony."

"I can't believe you're throwing _that_ back in my face now."

"I'm not." At his skeptical look, she relents. "Okay, I am. Doesn't mean it's not valid."

"Oh, it's valid," he says. "It's just that I don't care." He pauses. Is it weird that he wants to go and discuss the 2012 with Natasha in detail now? It must be the booze talking. 

The realization hits him, right about then, and it warms him through, and he can't help but be a little smug about it. "You're worried about me, Romanoff," he says triumphantly.

She looks at him like he is some bizarre space creature. Or, well, since there are a couple of bizarre space people raining snowballs on them right now, he thinks this may not be the best comparison. "I _am_ worried about you," she says. "I told you that right away. Why, don't you ever worry about me?" she asks sweetly; it's an obvious deflection.

"Only constantly." It's the third truth. He gives her that one for free because her admission has made him feel charitable and grandiose. "You worry for me more than for Steve. Yay!"

"You're an ass, Tony," she says. "But you brought food, so I suppose that cancels out."

She is distracted enough or drunk enough to be reckless, and she gets a snowball straight into he mouth for it. Tony thinks it serves her right, having everything in mind, but decides to have his vengeance on Rocket several times over for it. Because, familial loyalty.

***

Coda 2

It's more than a year later, and contrary to the popular expectations, he and Steve _work_. Oh, they argue, and they sometimes drive each other up the wall, and Natasha occasionally threatens she'll throw them out, but they are blindly, insanely, guiltily happy with each other, all in all. They live together now at the Compound, with Dog. It's there that Scott finds them.

Even later, they are making a plan of action. Morgan is with Pepper and Dog is with Happy, in case something happens to them. They are _working._ It feels awesome, to finally be doing something for real. Because, this is the first time after so long that their efforts are actually permeated with sweet, raw hope.

The world could perhaps yet be saved.

Nebula hints – in her own weird way, that is more like a hit on the head than a hint, really – that the pair to go to Vormir should have some kind of emotional attachment to each other. An emotional connection. She glances at Natasha and Clint as she says this, then away. She seems unsure about something. But Steve and Tony exchange a look. They don't even need to discuss this.

"We're going," Tony says. "We're obviously the best choice. The power couple and all that. Now that that's settled, let's talk New York 2012. Natasha, do you think you could..."

Nebula cuts him off. "No."

"No? No _what_?"

"No," Nebula repeats, staring at Tony. "Not you."

"We're the most logical choice," Steve interjects. "Now, I know you said you don't know any real facts, but whatever you can remember would be helpful..."

"No," Nebula repeats, even more forcefully than before. "Not _you_. New plan."

She refuses to explain, and Steve is inclined to think she knows more than she's saying. He is not sure he trusts her, but Tony seems to. The only thing she's willing to say on the subject is that it was a bad idea from the start and, "New plan!"

"I'm ruthless," Nebula tells Tony later. "But not _that_ ruthless."

She indeed _is_ pretty ruthless, but she's also very attached to Tony.

It's Clint and Rhodey (who never really hit it off as friends in any significant way) that end up going to Vormir, and, after very careful planning and new input from Nebula, who reluctantly discloses more info, they pop into existence there, create a momentary diversion, snatch the soul stone from Thanos in the moment he gets it, after killing his daughter, and disappear seconds after they appeared there. It's a most elegant piece of action, according to the two of them.

While Nebula and Rocket are getting the power stone, Steve and Tony go to New York with Scott and Bruce. It's a big mess, really, but in the end it all works out.

When Natasha and Thor get back from Asgard, Natasha is changed. Her movements have always been fluid, like a cat's, and economical, like a well-trained assassin's. She is what she is, after all, even if, in the later years, Steve has tended to forget that about her. She seems, however, to have gained a new kind of vigor on her trip, something resembling a belief that she can grab the world and change it, and it will stay changed. It might be the fact that the Avengers – _her_ Avengers, the original Avengers – are together again, a family again. And they are, it took time but they are. Or it might be the fact that, one snap of big green fingers later, the world is made whole again, if for a minute. But it's not just that. Tony asks, but she refuses to acknowledge anything. Steve just observes. She reminds him of himself, once Erskine was done with him and it suddenly felt like he had the means of doing what he thought he was meant to, in the world.

Later on, Thor admits that she'd had a long chat with Frigga, alone. He seems to think that's self-explanatory. Is the effect going to wear off, Tony would like to know, and Thor shakes his head, shrugs, shakes his head again. It's in her DNA now, whatever it is, he says.

During the battle, both Steve and Tony go for the gauntlet, but it's Natasha that snatches it away and puts it on in the end. Both Steve and Tony are at her back, touching her shoulder, her arm, trying to share the load. They shake with power and agony. At Thanos' words, Natasha just arches a perfect eyebrow and snaps her fingers; she doesn't deign his line with a response.

Her hand is ruined, just like Bruce's, but Steve has a feeling that, with time, they will both heal, and the same goes for the rest of the world.

Bucky is back, and so is Sam, and Wanda too, and Clint has his family, and Tony has little Peter, and there will be time for celebration and time for clean-up and time for rebuilding. But later. Steve is tired. They all are. So, first things first. Around them is ruin and wreckage, but many good things have survived. The lake house is one of them. And even if he and Tony have lived a the Compound for convenience, some of Steve's dearest memories took place at the cottage.

He takes Natasha by her good hand, and takes Tony by the other. "Guys," he says, and his voice is hoarse, and his body is shaking with exhaustion, but his heart is full. "It's time to go home."

**Author's Note:**

> Warmer Corners is an album by Lucksmiths. I love that album, every single note on it. I love it.
> 
> I'm sorry if the fic is rough around the edges, the deadline got to me, but I tried my best to polish it in the end :)


End file.
